Little Giant NOS DAC mini review

In absolute terms, digital is not, and cannot be truly accurate to the original performance in its present form.

Sorry, but unless you were the recording engineer who was there for the recording process there’s just no way you could ever know this.  What you are talking about is your own “perception” of what “you think” the original performance sounded like.  And, using a computer as a source whether through streaming or playing your own downloaded music is severely compromised and in no way should be used as a yardstick to judge digital sound.  If you listen to @ghdprentice above you should know his streaming setup now surpasses his $45k analog setup, so maybe — just maybe — you have some things to learn here.  Just sayin’.

Digital is plagued with audible distortion!

I’d submit that streaming music from your computer is the source of the problem — computers are the noisiest digital source you could possibly use. I’d suggest investing in something like an iFi Zen Stream ($399) streamer that will bring your streaming performance to an entirely different level that will likely rival and possibly surpass your CD player (it did mine), especially if you subscribe to something like Qobuz as a music source.